Reviewer
Steve Moore: Steve is a full-time
writer and ex-scientist. Besides his many technical publications, he
has written six sci-fi thrillers (one a novel for young adults), many
short stories, and frequent comments on writing and the digital
revolution in publishing. His interests also include physics,
mathematics, genetics, robotics, forensics, and scientific ethics.
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By Steve Moore

Published on March 19, 2018

Author: Walter Isaacson,

Publisher: Simon &
Schuster,

ISBN: 978-1-5011-3915-4

Author: Walter Isaacson,

Publisher: Simon &
Schuster,

ISBN: 978-1-5011-3915-4

Leonardo
Da Vinci, the quintessential Renaissance Man, was both an artist and
scientist (that could have been a subtitle for this excellent book,
connecting it to Mr. Isaacson’s Einstein and Jobs biographies). Mr.
Isaacson’s book is a historical description of the man, his art and
science, and his milieu—the power struggles at the political and
artistic levels.

From a detailed analysis
of the paintings and drawings and the advanced techniques he
developed and used in them to the description of his troubles with
patrons and family, the author puts Leonardo and his creativity in
historical context. Unfortunately the details described in “The
Last Supper” aren’t visible in the book’s reproduction (that’s
possibly only a reflection on its sorry state now after centuries of
neglect), but I was amused when the book’s author belittles Dan
Brown’s observation that St. John looks effeminate in that painting
and is really the Magdalene. Effeminate men in Leonardo’s paintings
aren’t uncommon. The discussion of that other classic painting
“Mona Lisa” (AKA as “La Giaconda”) is excellent, especially
in how the author explains how Leonardo’s anatomy studies
influenced that mysterious smile. Those are just two of the many
paintings and drawings discussed in the book.

Some historical
description stood out too. Michelangelo, more a Lorenzo Di’ Medici
darling than Leonardo (Medici’s sons, one a pope, made up for it,
though), was more contentious in his dealings with people, and his
feud with Leonardo reflects that. There’s ample evidence that
Michelangelo was jealous of Leonardo’s easy affability (the
references used for the book cover many pages), but the feud
continued to when Firenze as finding a place for the towering statue
of “David” (Leonardo was on the committee to decide the statue’s
placement within the city). Both men were probably gay, but Leonardo
was better adjusted, not repentant about it, and much more open,
while Michelangelo struggled with the religious overtones.

The author also portrays
Leonardo, the scientist, who was curious about so many things, much
more so than the average person, and proposed many conjectures,
theories, and devices in his notebooks, often mixing art and science
on the same page in his mirror-reversed handwriting. He was
fascinated with human anatomy, using knowledge gained from
dissections in his paintings and drawings, and correctly described
the phenomenon of arteriosclerosis in the aging process and how the
aortic valve works, the latter description only recognized as correct
in the 1960s (probably necessary for the development of artificial
aortic valves?).

Science was called
philosophy in those days, and Leonardo was as famous for being a
philosopher (scientist and engineer) as he was for his art. He was
far ahead of his time, so much so that I recall a sci-fi story that
postulated that he was really Leonard Vincent, a scientist from the
future stranded in the past. (I’ll profusely thank any reader who
can tell me the title of that short story and the author.)

There aren’t many places
in the book where I lost interest, but I could have done with less in
the long chapter about Borgia and Machiavelli. While interesting, its
length is a distraction and interrupts the main flow of the
narrative. It’s an example of how much has been made of Leonardo’s
affinity for attaching himself to strong men—it’s said that he
died in the arms of the King of France—but the Renaissance was a
brutal political times when the patrons of the arts often were strong
men, something that continued through the 19th century. Leonardo had
to work within his cultural constraints, and there’s no doubt that
the affinity found some of its genesis in his engineering interests
in military weapons and fortifications.

This book is very
different from the Einstein and Jobs bios. For one thing, Leonardo is
a more complex and versatile genius. For another, Leonardo’s
creativity is also complex because there’s so much to his art—he
was revolutionary in his use of new techniques, many derived from his
scientific studies. That’s why the book is a masterwork of
biographical analysis. At 500+ pages, it’s not easy to read. Your
best tactic is to do it in short sessions, just as Leonardo did with
many of his paintings (the “Mona Lisa” was painted over many
years, tiny layer by tiny layer). You can also skip around a bit,
focusing on the art first, then the science, or vice versa. I read it
straight through, though—wanting to see how Leonardo’s science
influenced his art, something personally meaningful to me as an
ex-scientist and now full-time writer. Of the three bios by Mr.
Isaacson that I’ve mentioned, I consider this his best.